Edgar Allan Poe

POE

«•"• HANNS
t8S HEINZ

EWERS

Glass.

Book

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COK3RIGHT DEPOSDi

EDGAR ALLAN POE

EDGAR ALLAN POE

BY
HANNS HEINZ EWERS

Translated from the German by

ADELE LEWISOHN

NEW YORK

B. W. HUEBSCH

MCMXVII

COPYRIGHT, 1016, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH

4

*y

PRINTED IN' THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

-Ho I .

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

One of the reasons for Hanns Heinz Ewers' in-
fluence upon German verse and prose is his wonder-
ful sense of the value of words, of their colors and
sounds, which he shares with the masters of all
times. His instinct leads him toward the strange,
the unexpected. The actions in his books take
place in the human soul — that land of dreams
which unites our soul to the world-soul.

The conception of the "Alraune" or "Man-
dragora," his most famous book, antedates Pytha-
goras. It is a fable of the plant that shrieks
when plucked. Ewers combines this story with
the science of our times and creates a tale of a
strange passion, with no intent to intoxicate but
rather to explain. This book has affected not
only the literature of Germany, but the literature
of France, where Ewers lived for years and where
he collaborated with Marc Henry, a French
modernist, in bringing out some French fairy tales,
"Le Joli Tambour" and the dramatic poem, "Les
Yeux Morts," now set to music by d' Albert.

INTRODUCTION

I cannot quote from any of his poems for they
are as yet untranslated. In the scries called "The
Soul of Flowers,55 in a manner so simple as to be
almost ingenuous, he has declared in exquisite lan-
guage that if the rose is the flower of love in all the
universe it is because this thought caused it to
become what it is.

His "Sorcerer's Apprentice, or, the Devil
Hunters5' is a powerful performance. A commun-
ity of peasants in an Italian mountain village re-
peat among themselves the whole of the passion
of Christ until the final crucifixion. A simple
peasant girl is hypnotized into believing herself
a savior and taking the sins of the world upon her
shoulders. Of this work we can truly say that
nothing that is human is alien to it.

Ewers was born at Dusseldorf in 1871. His
father was a painter of no mean ability. His
mother is a woman of great force of character
who translated several English books into German
and who has always deeply influenced her son.
Ewers has lived in almost all the countries of the
world. His "India and I55 is a record of his life
in India and that land herself is presented to us.
Her holy temples, her brown-faced dancers with
their swaying limbs and open arms, her incense,
her idols and her fakirs. All these are given new

vi

INTRODUCTION

expression as seen through the doubting yet loving
and always personal eyes of Hanns Heinz Ewers.

His conclusion is that the occult is so deeply
rooted in our spiritual natures that the mind is
our actual body, and the imagination our real
mind — that as a phenomenon of nature there
exists nothing more holy or more spiritual than
the carnal.

At a time when Poe was comparatively little
understood Ewers was his most sympathetic Ger-
man interpreter. He is able to mirror the soul
of Poe because they are intellectual kinsmen.
Both are at home in "the misty mid-region of
Weir," both dwell "out of Space, out of Time."
Both have explored the realm of Horror. In fact,
Ewers has gone beyond Poe because to him was
revealed the mystery of sex; to Poe sex always
was a sealed book. However, his attitude toward
Poe, as shown in this little essay, is almost that of
a worshipper.

Adele Lewisohn.

New York
December, 1916.

vu

EDGAR ALLAN POE

IN THE ALHAMBRA

LIGHTLY my feet tread over the
grey stairs of the old path that I
had so often followed to the Alham-
bra's sacred groves. The Gate of the
Pomegranates, behind which I flee to es-
cape from time, opens wide to my ardent de-
sires so gently does one wander into the
land of dreams, — where the elm trees mur-
mur, where the fountains babble, where from
out of the laurel bushes hundreds of night-
ingales sing, there I can best think of my
poet.

* * *

One ought not to do it. Really not.

One ought not read any mere book about
the artist one loves. One is sure to be dis-
appointed— how can the dominie speak of
God? One must go about it carefully, very,
very carefully.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

It ought to be done in this way:

You love Firdusi — Goethe wrote about
him. You do not know Goethe? Very
well. First read everything Goethe ever
wrote before you read what he has to say
about the Persian poet, and then onljr, after
you absolutely understand the man who
writes about j^our favorite, only then decide
whether you will read what he has to say
about him — In this way you will not be dis-
appointed.

Never read what Tom and Dick write
about the artist you love; even if Tom and
Dick happen to be stars of the first magni-
tude, and if the poet you love is altogether
a tiny speck of nebula — do not read them!
Do not read them before you know Tom
and Dick absolutely; until you know that
they have a right to sit in judgment on your
artist.

I did not do it in that way. I have some
drops of a heavy fluid in my blood from
some source or another, unbearable German
thoroughness. From a sort of sense of
duty, I thought, before writing of the poet

EDGAR ALLAN POE

you love, read what others before you have
written about him — I thought — perhaps —

Thereupon I read much about Edgar Al-
lan Poe, and I am so disappointed — so very
much disappointed. There was only one
whose mind could comprehend him. There
was only Charles Baudelaire.

Baudelaire, who created art out of hash-
ish. How could he do otherwise than com-
prehend Poe, he who moulded works of im-
perishable beauty out of alcohol and laud-
anum!

* # #

Now I must forget all that the others
said. I must forget the dreadful Griswold,
whose ^jvhole biography of Poe is nothing
else than an outburst of venom. "He
drank, he drank, phew, he drank!" And
the still more horrible Ingram. I must for-
get this fool, who saved my Poet's honor by
stammering, "He did not drink, really, he
did not drink at all."

Quickly before I forget them, I must
mark down the dates which they have given
me:

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar * Allan Poe — born on January 19,
1809 , in Boston. Irish family, long ances-
try, Norman, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and
Italian blood. In 1816 he went to England
with his foster-parents. A few years at
boarding school in Stoke-Newington — 1822
returned to America, 1826 studied at Rich-
mond, then in Charlottesville. 1827 went
on a trip to Europe with unknown adven-
tures: 1830 Cadet at West Point— 1834 edi-
tor of the Southern Literary Messenger in
Richmond. 1836 married his cousin, Vir-
ginia Clemm. He wrote — He lived al-
ternately in New York, Philadelphia, Rich-
mond and Fordhctm. Things went very
badly with him. "He drank," says Gris-
wold. "He did not drink," says Ingram.
He died October 7th in the hospital for the
poor at Baltimore, forty years of age.

So, these are the most insignificant dates.
Now I can forget them also.

# # #

Yet how difficult it is. Very slowly I
walk through the avenue of the elms up to

EDGAR ALLAN POE

the King's palace. To the left I turn in
and stride through the mighty Tower Gate
of Justice. I am delighted with the hand *
lifted above me to ward off the spell of the
evil eye. I think my priests will remain
outside. Now, I have reached the top — =
alone in these familiar rooms.

I know very well where I wish to go.
Quickly through the courtyard of the myr-
tles, through the Hall of the Mocarabians
into the courtyard of the Twelve Lions, — -
to the left, through the Hall of the Two
Sisters, and through that of the ajimezes t
I go. Now I arrive, — in the balcony of
Lindaraxa's Tower, where Boabdil's mother
Ayxa lived. I sit on the windowsill, look-
ing out upon the old cypress trees.

How difficult it is to forget. There are
my priests walking in the garden. Two

* A gigantic hand graven on the arch of this gate, whose
five fingers designate the principal commandments of the
creed of Islam, and which, according to a legend, wards on°
evil.

+ "Ajimezes" is a Spanish term for small arched windows
supported by central pillars; he probably refers to one of
the smaller courts famous for the symmetry of these win-
dows.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

English hypocrites, round hats, short pipes,
black coats, with Baedekers in their
hands.

"He drank," hisses one.

"O, no, he really did not drink" pipes the
other.

I would like to knock their heads together.
I would like to shout to them. "Away, you
rats, — away. Here sits one who is dream-
ing of the artist he loves ! He sang in your
language — and you know nothing of
him—5'

Presently they are gone, of course. I am
alone again!

# # #

He drank — he did not drink. That is the
way the Anglo-Saxons dispute about their
poets. They permit Milton to starve; they
steal his whole life's work from Shakespeare.
They delve into Byron's and Shelley's fam-
ily histories with crooked fingers ; they calum-
niate Rossetti and Swinburne; lock Wilde
into prison and point their finger at Charles
Lamb and Poe — because they drank!

EDGAR ALLAN POE

After all, I am happy that I am a Ger-
man. Germany's great men were permitted
to be immoral — that is, not quite exactly as
moral as the good middle class and the
priests. The German says: "Goethe was
our great poet." He knows that he was not
so very moral but he does not take that fact
too much to heart. The Englishman says:
—"Byron was immoral, therefore he cannot
have been a great poet." Only in England
could Kingsley — that offensive preacher of
morality — have uttered that remark about
Heine, which has become a familiar quota-
tion— "Do not speak of him, — he was a
wicked man."

If, however, it is unalterable, if the na-
tions on all sides acknowledge and love the
"immoral" English poets, the Englishman
is at last forced to speak — then he lies. He
does not renounce his hypocrisy; he simply
says: "Later investigation has proved that
the man was not at all immoral, — he was
highly moral, quite pure and innocent." In
this fashion the English have "saved the
honor" of Byron. It will not be long ere

EDGAR ALLAN POE

they turn a Saul Wilde into a Paul.
Thus in the ease of Poe, an Ingram followed
a Griswold with the "Oh, no, he really did
not drink."

The English are now permitted to appre-
ciate Edgar Allan Poe, since it is officially
attested that he was a moral being.

But we, who make not the slightest claim
to middle class morality, — we love him, even
if he drank. Yes, even more we love him
because of his drink, because we know that
just from this poison which destroyed his
body pure blossoms shot forth, whose artis-
tic worth is imperishable.

How works of art are created is not the
affair of the layman, — that is the affair of
the artist alone — no one may venture a word
or even pass judgment on a final sentence.
Only the few whom he permits a glimpse
into his mode of creating because they love
him, may silently look on — only they can
tell.

Wilde tells the fairy tale of the marvel-
ously beautiful rose which blossomed from
the heart's blood of the dying nightingale.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

The student who plucked it looked and won-
dered ; never before had he seen such a won-
drous blood-red rose. But he knew not
how it had originated.

We marvel at the Odontoglossum grande,
the most splendid of all orchids. Is it less
beautiful because it feeds on insects which
it slowly tortures to death in the most fear-
ful manner? We rejoice at the splendid
lilies in the Park of Cintra. We marvel,
— we have never seen them so large and
white. What does it matter that the crafty-
gardener does not water them with natural
water, but with guano, with selected artificial
manure?

The time will come when the highroads
of our sober art, only scantily lighted by the
melancholy lamps of alcohol, will be ridi-
culed. A time for those to whom intoxica-
tion and art are inseparable ideas, who, as
a matter of fact will only recognize the dis-
tinction in the art brought forth by intoxica-
tion. Then only will one give to these path-
finders the high places they deserve, to Hoff-
mann, Baudelaire, Poe — the artists who

EDGAR ALLAN POE

were the first to work understandingly with
intoxicants.

Let us be honest! Is there any artist
who can entirely abstain from the use of in-
toxicants? Do they not all take their little
poisons: tea, tobacco, coffee, beer, or what-
ever it may be? Must not the mind be
"poisoned" in order to produce works of art?
Because if the artist is not poisoned by means
of his body, he is in other ways.

For there are quite a number of other
ways.

Art and Nature are always opposed to
one another. A man who lives a purely ab-
stemious life, physically and mentally, —
whose ancestors for many generations have
also lived just as abstemiously, so that his
blood is not, as it is with all of us, poisoned,
can never become an artist, unless some
divine power provides him with other sensa-
tions, capable of awaking ecstasy. But
those also act as a poison upon the spirit.
Nature and Art are the deadliest enemies;
where one reigns the other becomes impos-
sible.

10

EDGAR ALLAN POE

What is the meaning of the word "artist"
in its truest sense? A pioneer of culture in
the newly discovered land of the uncon-
scious.

How few are worthy to be called artists
under this lofty definition of that proud
title! E. T. A. Hoffmann deserves it, and
Jean Paul and Villiers and Baudelaire —
and certainly also Edgar Allan Poe; this
much even the Griswolds must concede to
the artist who, in so many of his stories, en-
tered that secret country of the soul, of which
no one before him, and least of all the scien-
tists, had the slightest presentiment.

The eternal land of our longing lies
dreamily before us in grey misty clouds, — ■
the vast land of the unknown. The beggar
lies huddled in the warm sunshine, — the con-
tented town folks hug their fire places.

But there are people whose tormenting
desires are so great that they must emerge
from the realm which we know. JRobur et
ces triplex must protect their breasts when
they leave the sunny land of the known,
when they steer through the grey murder-

11

EDGAR ALLAN POE

ous floods to Avalon. And many, many
perish shamefully without having cast even
a single glance behind the clouds. Only a
few can complete the journey. They dis-
cover a new land, — accept it in the name of
a new culture; they have extended the bor-
ders of consciousness a little further.

The artists are these first explorers.
After them come the hordes of expeditions
of discoverers in order to survey and investi-
gate the country — land registrars and rent
collectors— men of science.

Now it is certain that the so-called poisons,
which we call narcotics, are as potent as
other means to lead us beyond the threshold
of the conscious. If one succeeds in getting
a firm footing in this "other world," ex-
changing the metaphysical for something
positive, one creates a new work of art, and
is, in the noblest sense, an artist.

It may be necessary here to accentuate
that quality of wisdom which insists, of
course, that there can be no idea of creation
in intoxication. Or, on the other hand, that
no intoxicant in the world can develop in

12

EDGAR ALLAN POE

a man qualities which he does not possess.

The Griswolds and the Ingrams could
take any amount of wine, could smoke any
amount of opium, eat any amount of hash-
ish, nevertheless they would still be unable
to create works of art.

But the intoxication caused by narcotics
is liable, under certain conditions, when ac-
companied by other causes, to create a state
of ecstasy later on, and in this state of ec-
stasy every one produces the highest that
his intelligence is capable of conceiving.

Edgar Allan Poe drank. And, as with
all of us, his body proportionately reacted
unfavorably against the poison of the al-
cohol, deadened as it was by the drink-habits
of generations of ancestors; so he drank
heavily. He got drunk. But he got drunk
purposely, he did it in order to get the
drunkard's understanding, from which he
later on, perhaps years later, could create
new art values. Such intoxication is no de-
light, it is an unbearable torture ; consciously
desired only by him on whose brow the liv-
ing mark of art is branded.

18

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Is there a more shameful lie than' that re-
mark of the banal: "Artistic creation is not
work — it is a pleasure?" He who says this
and the great public which thoughtlessly re-
peat it, have never felt the breath of ecstasy,
which is the only condition demanded by
art. And this ecstasy is always a torture,
even when — in rare cases — the cause which
produced it, was one of rapture.

They say that it is with joy that the
mother cat brings forth her young — but the
offspring are only poor blind little kittens.
So may the weekly contributor to the
Gotham Gazette, so may the versifier of a
"Berlin by Night" sheet, put his lines on
paper with joy — a work of art is never born
without pain.

# * #

I wandered forth again — through the ma-
jestic palace of the fifth Roman Emperor
of Germany, who bore the name of Karl,
right through the mighty portico, up through
the long avenue of white blooming acacias,
through the meadows blooming with many

14

EDGAR ALLAN POE

thousand blue irises. The Tower of the
Princesses I had unlocked for me, where one
time the Sultan's daughters Zayda, Zorayda,
and Zorahayda at the window secretly over-
heard the songs of the captured Christian
knights.

I gaze at the valley beyond the hill from
which Boabdil at parting sent his last sigh
to lost Granada. I glance at the garden of
the Generalife. I can clearly see the many
hundred year old cypresses, under whose
shadow the last Moorish king's wife, Hamet,
came to a tryst with the handsomest of the
Abencerrages, which was to prove so fatal.

Here each stone relates a legend, that is
sadly fading away.

Deep below in the valley lies the road
which leads up to the City of the Dead. A
pair of black goats graze on the green slopes.
Back below the Tower of the Prisoners, sits
a tattered toll-taker in front of his dirty
cave. Long-eared rabbits graze about him,
— seven roosters, already robbed of crest
and tail feathers, for the impending battle,
peck about the ground or fly at each other,

15

EDGAR ALLAN POE

and far in the East the snow of the wild
Sierra Nevada glows purplish red.

A troop of ragged lads travel through the
Valley- — Two are carrying a little child's
coffin on their shoulders — open according to
the Spanish custom — another shoulders the
cover. The coffin is very simple, three yel-
low boards and two smaller ones. But
within lie flowers, many flowers, red, yel-
low— and white and blue flowers— from
under which the waxen pale little face
framed in black hair looks forth. No priest,
no relatives, not even father nor mother are
in the procession— six tattered lads. —

But among so many gay flowers the dead
child reposes in such fresh blossoming fra-
grance. How good that they did not close
her eyes ! Now she looks forth, interestedly
from out of the variegated flowers — up to the
old Moorish King's Palace— peers out of
the colored splendor, the little dead girl so
satisfied and happy, as she certainly never
was in life.

Edgar Allan Poe should have sat here.

How he would have dreamed; how the gay

*' ' — " . •■ — ■ — '-' * * — * — •- — ■ ■ ■ ■ -"'

16

EDGAR ALLAN POE

legends would have flown about his brow on
light wings! And he would have built a
new Alhambra, in words of bronze, which
would have outlasted the mighty towers of
the Nasserites by many centuries.

Here then other means perhaps would
have created for him a state of ecstasy. He
would probably not have drunk. But he
was there in New England, his poor poet's
soul penned in between realist prose writers,
while at the same time Washington Irving,
that model of English conventionality, was
allowed to dream under the magic spell of
Alhambra moonshine! And his "Tales of
the Alhambra" became world renowned!

Day after day I see strangers enter the
sacred places, in their hands Baedekers; in
their coat pockets copies of Irving's book.
Just as they read the "Last Days of Pom-
peii" in the House of Vettii or that of
Dionysos! Did the few beauties contained
in these books, which undeniably exist, ema-
nate from Lord Lytton or Irving's mind?
O, no, a breath from the Roman City of the
Dead, of the Moorish fairy palace poured

17

EDGAR ALLAN POE

through their souls even though they were
not poets, even though they were only little
middle class scribblers. Neither Bulwer
nor Irving created these beauties, but Pom-
peii and the Alhambra in spite of them.
# # #

Poe's glowing longing knew nothing of
all this. To emerge from his own self, to
awaken within him an ecstasy which could
transport him from all the familiar surround-
ings which shut him in, there remained for
him but one medium. Aside from very un-
important happenings, little calculated to
induce ecstasy, this most unfortunate of
poets once only received from the outer
world the Muse's Kiss ; through his beautiful
beloved wife, Virginia Clemm. May the
Moralist call this intoxication holy, god-
like, may he call the Poet's other ecstasy,
which resulted from the use of alcohol, then
from opium, as unholy and fiendish; that is
not of interest to us. For the artistic values
which are brought forth by these are no less
splendid.

The godly ecstasy, however, was hardly

18

EDGAR ALLAN POE

less torturing for the inspired one than the
infernal one. A Hell was to him what
Paradise is to others, — a well beloved, a
blessed Hell, but the flames of which never-
theless scorched. For Virginia, — to whose
dying eyes we are indebted for Morella, and
Ligeia, Berenice and Lenore, — was doomed
before she had given her hand to the Poet.
He knew that she had consumption, that the
glowing red of her cheeks lied, knew that
from the depth of her liquid shimmering
eyes the inexorable sickness grinned forth.
When at night he stroked, the beloved locks
he knew: "So many days yet she will live,"
and the next morning again "Another day
less." It was a dying woman who kissed
his lips, a dying woman, whose lovely head
rested next to his at night. When he awoke
disturbed by the coughing and rattling in
her panting lungs — the white linen seemed
to him a shroud, the cold drops on her brow,
the sweat of death, a lingering death, lasting
for years, a visible slow fading of the be-
loved— this was the only "happiness" of this
most unhappy of all poets.

19

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Yes, this beautiful doomed wife, called
forth emotions, — but they were emotions of
fear, of silent repressed pain — of despair in
a laughing disguise; a Paradise of Torture.
Read the most beautiful tales Virginia
sowed in his soul; you will feel a breath of
the unspeakable torture in which they were
born.

Before the last threads of life were torn
asunder, and the silent woman lowered into
the grave, Edgar Allan Poe wrote his mas-
terpiece "The Raven"; and the state of ec-
stasy which brought forth this poem, which
has no equal in the whole literature of the
world, (I would like to shout this fact into
the faces of the English hypocrites), was
caused by the despair of his bleeding heart
for this dying one, as well as by the com-
mon, low intoxication of the wine cup.

Each alienist who has specialized in the
effects of intoxication, will readily recognize
those parts of "The Raven" which sprang
from delirium with absolute certainty. It is
quite simple for the psychologist to trace
the other rapture which the artist owes to

20

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Virginia, his "lost Lenore." And here let
us compare the sincere, marvelously clear
essay which Poe wrote about the creation of
this poem. Each stanza, each line, each
single sound of words, he motivates in start-
lingly simple logic; it is almost as though he
wranted to demonstrate a geometrical prob-
lem. It may be true that the main sub-
ject, the ecstasy, and its origin in holy and
— O, such very unholy, intoxication, — is not
mentioned by any word. — This essay was
written for the New England readers of
magazines, — how could they have under-
stood a poet who spoke of ecstasy? The
workmanship — the purely technical part,
that which signifies the art, that which is
supported by knowledge — that was never
demonstrated by any Poet as clearly and
convincingly as in this essay. A veritable
text book of poetry, of one master piece. —
Certainly as a guide the Philistine cannot
use it; for the artist, however, it is the most
important book of instruction existing. He
may learn from it that godlike intoxication
alone does not create an absolute work of

21

EDGAR ALLAN POE

art, that the common work, the despised
technique, the reflection and polishing, the
weighing and filing, are quite as indispens-
able for its perfection.

Not the mighty mind alone of the Arabian
architect created the glorious Alhambra. —
Masons, mule-drivers, gardeners, and
painters, — each brought his little part to
bear.

Edgar Allan Poe was the first poet who
spoke with such candor of literary labor, of
the craftsman's work alone. In this, and
probably only in this, his attitude was that
of the American. As such he stood, and
what is more, at the threshold of modern
thought, he ranks as the pioneer — a brilliant
demonstration of the intrinsic value of this
Artist, who speaks only of technique and
with no word mentions intuition which the
amateur always carries on his tongue. Per-
haps if he had written for other readers in
his magazine, he might have gone one step
further, and have told them about the tech-
nique of intoxication.

22

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Never before him did any one so dismem-
ber his own work of art, and dissect it to its
last shred. The divine breath dictated by
the Bible haunts the faith of the masses until
our very day and the artists by the "grace of
the Lord," were careful not to destroy this
fable of inspiration. When the Holy Ghost
touched them, they swooned, — composed,
wrote poetry, — and gave birth to more or less
immaculate children of spirit. That was
so pretty, so comfortable, that certainly
some of the great artists would gladly have
believed in this secret consecration. "Drunk
with godliness" was said of the Thracian
poet, even were he as sober as Socrates.
This thought, which in its Dionysic origin
coincides with our modern view of intoxica-
tion and ecstasy, according to the later point
of view, received the Lord's anointment,
and, like so many other clear thoughts, which
it was able to obscure, was taken up in the
Christian conception of life with great en-
thusiasm. All the beautiful phrases of the
Knights of Olympus, of the Kiss of the

23

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Muses, of the divine ecstasy, of the divine
predestination of artists — by which we,
Heaven be praised, are no longer impressed!
— have their origin in this.

It required courage to dissipate these
sparkling mists ; few, very few myths about
world's literature can stand such a relentless
decomposition. But because Poe in his
Raven created a work of art so clean, so
finished, he could risk such a step. The
petty, the ridiculous and absurd, which other-
wise draw the sublime into the dust, can do
nothing against this perfection.

My glance falls on the wall coverings of
this hall. In the style of Mudejar, the
Arabesque and Coptic sentences become en-
twined.

The eye is never surfeited with these fan-
tastic harmonies. Now this marvel of
Arabic art is composed of plaster — just com-
mon plaster, — how laughable, how paltry,
how absurd ! But though composed of mis-
erable plaster this colossal work of art loses
nothing of its sublimity. The ordinary me-
dium exhales the breath of the spirit that in-

24

EDGAR ALLAN POE

spired it. Art triumphs over nature, and
this art is so great that the recognition of
the common medium is superfluous.

Poe did not need this time-honored coat
of lies. He saw that it was threadbare and
torn and boldly threw it aside. In the few
words with which he characterizes the un-
derstanding of intuition in "Eureka" as
"the conviction arising from those induc-
tions or deductions of which the processes
are so shadowy as to escape our conscious-
ness, elude our reason, or defy our capacity
of expression" — there was a clearer recogni-
tion of the ways of artistic creation than
any of his contemporaries had. While the
Poet-philosopher therefore in opposition to
the so-called "Intuition" of philosophy — es-
pecially in reference to Aristotle, and Bacon,
with whom he disputes makes allowance for
this, which the latter denies; he at the same
time determines its value in a limited un-
tjieological modern sense. This shows the
gigantic spirit of this foremost being en-
dowed with a modern mind, that he, the ro-
manticist, the dreamer, still is a worshipper

25

EDGAR ALLAN POE

of logic, who never lost the ground beneath
his feet.

Edgar Allan Poe was the first one openly
to acknowledge the technique of thought —
and anticipated Zola's "genius is applica-
tion" by decades. And this same Edgar
Allan Poe wrote in his preface to Eureka —
"To the few who love me and whom I love
— to those who feel rather than to those who
think — to the dreamers and those who put
faith in dreams as in the only realities, — I
offer this book of Truths, not in its charac-
ter of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that
abounds in its Truth, constituting it true.
To these I present the composition as an
Art-Product alone, — let us say a Romance ;
or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as
a Poem.

"What I here propound is true: — there-
fore it cannot die ; or if by any means it be
now trodden down, so that it die, it will rise
again to the cLife Everlasting.' "

So Poe, absolutely independent of Gau-
tier, sets up his Art for Art's Sake princi-
ple,— greater than Gautier who only saw

26

EDGAR ALLAN POE

beauty with the eyes of the painter, he places
his demand. And he is also deeper than
Gautier, to whom the outward form alone
was a manifestation of beauty. Beauty
first creates truth for him into truth — whose
right to existence without beauty he denies.
— This is the greatest demand ever made of
Art, and as this demand can be fulfilled only
in desires, dreams to him are the only real-
ity, and he denies all real value to active
life. Here, too, Poe the Romanticist, is a
pathfinder — and is the first one to disclose
what is called "Modern Thought."

If he anticipated Zola's coined expression
of technical production, if he furthermore
set up the Parnassian art principle independ-
ent of this, he bridged the gap of half a cen-
tury and made a demand so ultra-modern
that, even today, only a small part of the
advanced spirits understand it in its whole
radical magnitude.

The fertility of the literature of the cul-
tured peoples will through Poe's spirit first
attain full development in this century. The
past one judged him by a few outward

27

EDGAR ALLAN POE

trivialities, a hawing and hemming, which
certainly brought a fortune to Jules Verne
and Conan Doyle, the fortunate imitators.
It is certain that the starving poet only wrote
these things for his daily bread. The Sea
and Moon Journeys of Gordon Pym and
Hans Pfaal, etc., also several of his detec-
tive stories as, for instance "The Murder in
The Rue Morgue" "The Purloined Letter"
"The Gold Bug," were certainly called
into existence only by the desire to have
warmth, food and drink. For Poe knew
hunger. Therefore he wrote those things,
as he also did translations, and worked at all
possible sorts of scientific books. Surely,
each single story, even the weakest, far sur-
passes any adventure of the eminent Sher-
lock Holmes. — Why does the great public,
and especially the English speaking public,
in spite of all this, swallow Doyle's ridicu-
lous detective stories with enthusiasm, and
lay those of Poe aside?

Nothing is easier to understand. Poe's
characters are like those of Dostoevski's, so
real, his composition is so faultless, so holds

28

EDGAR ALLAN POE

the imagination of the reader without possi-
bility of escape in its nets, that even the
bravest cannot resist a shudder, an agoniz-
ing, murderous shudder, which resembles a
cruel nightmare.

In the works of popular imitators this
fear is nothing more than a pleasant sensa-
tion, which not for one moment permits the
reader to doubt the outcome of the farce.
The reader always knows that this is all
stupid nonsense; in this case he is standing
above the narrator. This is the author's in-
tention. Poe, however, grasps the reader,
hurls him down the precipice and flings him
into hell, so that the poor simpleton loses
all sense of hearing and seeing, and is com-
pletely at sea. Therefore the good citizen
who wants to sleep quietly, prefers the stage
hero of Baker Street, and draws the line at
Poe's gigantic nightmares. One sees that
even when he desired to be middle class,
where he desired to write for the great
masses, his aim is still too high. He ad-
dressed middle class intellect and imagined
himself to be speaking to his equals: To

EDGAR ALLAN POE

carry his brain to market he ran about from
publisher to publisher — to those who wanted
to buy straw.

* * *

But a future time will be ripe for the
Poet's gifts. We already recognize the path
which leads from Jean Paul and E. T. A.
Hoffmann to Baudelaire and Edgar Allan
Poe, the only path which art, the outcome of
culture, can take ! Already we have several
efforts in this direction.

This art will no longer be confined within
national bounds. It will be conscious of it-
self as was Edgar Allan Poe conscious that
it does not exist for "its own people" but
alone for the thin ranks of cultured taste, be
these of Germanic or Japanese, of Latin or
Jewish nationality.

No artist ever worked for "his people,"
alone, and yet almost every artist desired to
do so and believed he had accomplished this.
The great masses in Spain know absolutely
as little of Velasquez and Cervantes as the
English working man does of Shakespeare
and Byron, as the French do of Rabelais and

30

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Moliere, as the Hollander does of Rem-
brandt and Rubens. The German masses
have not the slightest notion of Goethe and
Schiller. They do not even know the names
of Heine and Burger. The series of ques-
tions or the answers made by the soldiers
to the questions put to the soldiers of cer-
tain regiments: "Who was Bismarck?
Who was Goethe?" should at length open
the eyes of the most optimistic. A whole
world divides the cultured man of Germany
from his countrymen, whom he meets daily
in the street ; a nothing — a canal — separates
him from the cultured element in America.
Heine felt this and preached this openly
to the people of Frankfort. Edgar Allan
Poe expressed it even more distinctly.
Most artists, however, and the learned and
cultivated of all nations had such a slight
understanding of this, that unto this day
Horace's fine "Odi Profanum" is misinter-
preted. The artist who wishes to create for
his own people alone attempts the impos-
sible, and for this purpose he very often
neglects something attainable and greater,

31

EDGAR ALLAN POE

the possibility of creating for the whole
world. Above the German, above the Brit-
ish and French, there stands a higher na-
tion. The nation of culture I To create
for that is alone worthy of the artist. Here
on this soil Poe was at home even as Goethe
though in a different, equally conscious, but
less modern sense.

# # #
Very slowly I pace about in the park of
the Alhambra under the old elms which
Wellington planted. On all sides fountains
murmur, mingling their voices with the
sweet songs of hundreds of nightingales.
Among the turreted towers I walk in the
luxuriant vale of the Alhambra. To whom
does this magic palace, this garden of dreams
belong? To the Spanish nation of beggars
which I despise? To the mob of strangers
with their guide-books in their hands, whose
path I avoid by ten paces at least? O, no!
This palace, this garden of dreams belongs
to me, and to the few who are qualified to
absorb these beauties, whose breath brings
life to these rocks, to these shrubs. Whose

32

EDGAR ALLAN POE

spirit can transform all this beauty into
truth? Everything about me, and all else
which is beautiful on this earth, is the sacred
inviolable property of the cultured people,
who stand above all other nations. That
Nation is the true ruler, the true possessor.
No other master is tolerated by beauty. To
understand this means to understand the
world. Edgar Allan Poe was the first to
do this.

I sit on the stone bench on which
Aboul Haddjadj once dreamed. A foun-
tain bubbles up before me — and falls into the
round marble basin. I know quite well why
the Sultan sat here alone in the twilight:
Oh, it is so very sweet to dream here !

There was once a Poet who recorded
nothing but conversations with the dead.
He chatted with all the seven sages, and
with all the kings of Nineveh, and with
Egyptian priests and Thessalian witches,
with Athenian singers, with Roman gen-
erals and with King Arthur's Round Table.
At last he had no desire left to speak with
any living being. The dead are so much

EDGAR ALLAN POE

more interesting. Oh, one can speak with
them, certainly. All dreamers can do so
and all those who believe in dreams, as in the
only reality.

Did I not wander today with him I love,
through the halls of the Palace ? Did I not
reveal to the dead Poet part of the beauty
of the world, never seen by mortal eye?
Now he stands here beside me, leaning
against the elm. "Only ask me," he says.

He seems to feel how my eyes caress and
question him — and he speaks. At times the
words drop clearly from his lips; at times
his voice ripples from the fountain; it sings
from out of the throats of the nightingales
and rustles in the leaves of the old elms. So
wise are the dead.

"Do not touch upon my poor life," says
Edgar Allan Poe. "Question Goethe who
was a prince and could afford six stallions
with which to tear through the world. I
was alone."

I do not remove my eyes from him.

"Tell those who love you and whom you
love."

34

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The life I lived, I have forgotten," he
said. "O, not only since my death, as the
small mortals think — each day I forgot to
remember the morrow. Otherwise how
could I have continued to live? — My real
life though, my life of dreams, you know."
. . . From the ground a light mist glides
through the evening, a sweet cool breeze fans
my brow. Certainly : the life of his dreams
was very well known to me, he gave it to me
as well as to the world. And slowly this
pageant of his creations which represents
his life glides past me.

* * #

William Wilson. Of course it is Poe. So
truly Poe that the dominie Griswold calmly
gives the year of Wilson's birth — 1813 —
as that of the Poet's. The boy rules in the
old boarding school of Stoke-Newington
over all his fellow students; only not over
one — the other Wilson, himself. And he
whose inherited frivolous tastes again and
again turned the boy, the youth and the man
into a vagabond, cannot rid himself of his
conscience, of that other Wilson — himself.

35

EDGAR ALLAN POE

In spite of his conscience his tendency to
crime tosses him about the world, and over
and over again he convicts himself.* Thus
the poet's boyhood and his youth were
poisoned. His inherited sense of good and
evil which had been more strongly developed
by his education is so overstrong in him
that he cannot disentangle himself from his
conflicting emotions, and is almost wrecked
by them. Each little wrong he has com-
mitted takes on colossal proportions in his
dreams and plagues and torments him.
Still more, sins of conscience, entertaining
the idea of evil alone, become a reality in his
dreams. He sees himself as the hero of all
his terrible tales. The sins of the fathers
are avenged upon the last scion of the race;
like Frederick of Metzengerstein in his own
story, he himself rides through all the flames
of hell, on his devilish steed.
# # #

. . . How the elm trees murmur. And I

* His biographer, the Rev. Mr. Griswold, nevertheless re-
marks, that in all literature there is no other instance in
which one so utterly misses every vestige of conscience, as
in the case of Poe.

36

EDGAR ALLAN POE

hear the voice of the accursed from out of
the winds:

"Had I not been a poet, I probably should
have become a murderer, a cheat, a thief, a
robber and a trickster."

The leaves of the elms sing and again a
voice whispers:

"And perhaps I would have been hap-
pier."

And I think, — who can tell? — Has there
ever been a criminal whose deeds created a
martyrdom for him such as the Poet felt for
crimes which he had never committed? For
Poe in his dreams, which were his only ac-
tual life, is not only the murderer, but also
the victim. He immures his enemy while
still alive in a cellar. And it is he himself
who is walled in. ("The Cask of Amontil-
lado.") He murders, because he must, the
man with the eagle eye, — he buries him under
the planks, and the heart which is beating
below this, and which at last discloses the
deed, is again his own. ("The Tell-Tale

37

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Heart.") We find the double of William
Wilson everywhere.

Rarely has an artist stood so little out-
side of that which he created, never did one
so live within his works. A German, a
Frenchman would have more easily emanci-
pated himself from this fatal idea of moral-
ity. The Poet, however, by inheritance
and education suffered from a piety which
enslaved his soul, and from which he could
never entirely free himself. Only later in
life could he assume an objective attitude;
he never stood entirely outside of all good
and evil. The old English curse oppressed
him, no torture was spared him; this poor
soul had to endure all the maddest tortures
of hell, the cup of which Brueghel, Jean van
Bosch and Goya emptied unto the last
dregs.

Had he been a criminal in reality instead
of in thought, had he ended his days on the
gallows instead of in the charity hospital,
his life would have been poverty-stricken
and miserable — but not as terrible as it was.

But temples arise from fields strewn with

38

EDGAR ALLAN POE

skulls, fields of lilies blossomed from blood-
stained meadows. And we blessed ones en-
joy the wonderful flowers which grew out of
the Poet's poisoned imagination, — the price
of his soul.

# # *

The brooklets ripple through the park of
the Alhambra. Merry little brooklets that
murmur and gurgle ! In their narrow peb-
bled beds they hurriedly flow past, as quickly
as the happy hours in the poet's life glided by
him; — those hours, or minutes, perhaps, in
which he could be innocently happy.

Then he would dream a merry dream, —
perhaps of the man with the wonderful big
nose which charmed the whole world, which
artists painted and princesses kissed. In
this delightful little story, which in its bizarre
style is a forerunner of Mark Twain's (only
that with Poe the grotesque exaggerations
appear much finer, much more natural)
there is no ostentation of wordplay.

He laughs at the poor man's meals which
the weekly papers dish up to their good
natured readers, he teaches Miss Zenobia

39

EDGAR ALLAN POE

how to write a clever article for Blackwood's
Magazine, permits the most worthy Mr.
ThingTim Bob of the "Lantern" to gossip
entertainingly about his literary adventures.
So light, so amiable, and so ingratiating is
the Poet's wit, — like the little springs which
merrily gurgle through the park of the Al-

hambra !

# # #

But like the nightingale, he sobs forth his
dreams of longing. And his voice seems
formed from out of the nightingale's soul,
so pure, so spotless. Saint Cecilia would
fain break her violin with envy, and Apollo
shatter his lyre. If the Poet found no hell
too deep for his dream of crime, no heaven
was too high for his songs of beauty.

In none of Poe's works do we find one
sentence, one little allusion based upon
sexual love. To no other poet was eroti-
cism as foreign as to Poe, except possibly
Scheerbart.

Just as little can we find one strain of
social sentiment in his works. And yet
there is a heart in his breast, which longs for

40

EDGAR ALLAN POE

love, to which love's communications are an
absolute necessity. It is only that he can-
not love man, because he sees the little faults
which repel him on all sides, which cause
him to refuse the hand held out for love's
caresses, and to silence the flattering word
on his lips. Then he turns his longing to
do good towards animals — pats the dog,
feeds the hungry cat, and is thankful for a
faithful look, for a satisfied purring. How
conscious the Poet was of all this is seen in
his tale, "The Black Cat," in which he em-
phasizes his love of animals, and says that
he "derived from it one of my principal
sources of pleasure." If it was one of the
"principal sources of pleasure" in a poor
life, it was certainly one of the few, that did
not mingle pleasure with pain, — for the pure
love for his dying wife but caused him joys
mingled only with frightful tortures.

The Edgar Allan Poe that is Roderick
Usher had, like the angel Israfil of the
Koran, a lute in place of his heart. When
he looked at his beloved wife, his heart
sobbed, and his lute sang : it sang pure songs

41

EDGAR ALLAN POE

of longing', whose tones sound in one's ears
with sweetest thrills — it sang pure tales of
Morella and Berenice — of Lenore and
Ligeia. The same inner music wrhich throbs
through the Raven, and Ulalume, and which
is perhaps the highest in Art, echoes through
these poems in prose; and the words writh
which the Poet accompanied his "Song of
the Universe" is meant also for these tones:
"They cannot die; or if by any means they
be now trodden down so that they die, they
will rise again to the Life Everlasting."

Yes, they have eternal worth; they will
live through the short space of life which we
mortals call everlasting; which, however, is
the highest to which even a human being can
attain, even in all times to come.

Poe's value as a poet has not at any time
been greater than in our OAvn, for in our
time, particularly in our period, he can teach
us much. Poe is no longer a problem; he
has become a personality, which lies clearly
before all those who have the power to see.
The consciousness of his art brought forth
by intoxication, the emphasizing of the

42

EDGAR ALLAN POE

meaning of technique, the clear recognition
of the Parnassian principles of art in their
broadest meaning, the powerful demonstra-
tion of the high value of the inner rhythm of
all poetry ; all these are moments, which have
individually been accentuated by many
others, though in their entirety, and in their
penetrating relation, they have been rec-
ognized by no artist as by this New Eng-
land poet — and as these moments represent
that which can be called the furthering of the
modern spirits in the art of culture in their
entirety, the study of the works of Poe is
more gratifying to the artist and to the ed-
ucated layman than any other. That it is
impossible to promote these studies by means
of translations is obvious. One can grow
to know and admire the artist through trans-
lations, but to penetrate into his innermost
being, it is necessary to read him in the origi-
nal form. This may be said of all poets,
but of none more than of Poe.

* * #
The nightingales still sing, and from out

43

EDGAR ALLAN POE

of their little throats bursts forth the voice
of the Poet I love. The soft winds fold
their wings — the leaves of the elms cease
their rustling. Even the drizzling little
rivulets stop their whisperings. The park
of the Alhambra listens to the songs of the
nightingales.

Through hundreds of years at eventide
these sweet sounds have sung these old tow-
ers and walls to sleep, and today, too, they
are still the same confiding notes, but dif-
ferent— very different. A dead Poet's lute-
like heart is beating, and his soul's songs
are sung by the little birds. So the brook
and the trees listen, the red quarry stones
are harkening — the purple glowing peaks of
the snow capped mountains are listening
too : an endless sigh floats through the great
garden from out of the west. It is the glow
of the setting sun, which is sadly taking
leave of a Poet's sublime song.

The twilight breathes through the elm
trees and filmy shadows of fog rise from the
laurel bushes; they rise from out of the

Moorish palace of spirits. In a long train

•.,■,•■••, .ii ' . . . • . . • . =^

44

EDGAR ALLAN POE

they file past us, and seat themselves about
on the marble benches. I know very well
who they are — they are poets of Granada,
— Jews and Arabs. Very close to me sits
Gabirol, then Ibnu-1-Khattib — and Ibn
Esra and Jehuda ben Halevy and Mo-
hammed Ibn Khaldun, and Ibn Batuta.
Hundreds of dead Poets are silently listen-
ing to the song of the nightingales. They
all know what the grey little birds are sing-
ing today, — so do the dead understand.
They hear the heart of the angel Israfil, of
whom the Koran speaks, and praise God,
who has awakened all these tones. Ouald
ghdliba ill' Allahta 'aid — murmur the misty
shadows of the Alhambra.

And the nightingales sing of dark secrets,
of the pure sources of life, and a great long-
ing fills my soul. They sing of that secret
thought which created all and penetrates
all, of the world creating breath, which fills
the whole universe with unending love.
They sing of the beauty which only turns
all truth into reality, of the dreams which
only make life real.

45

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Poe's soul is singing — and a hundred dead
poets listen to the refrain. And from their
lips fall again the ancient words — Ouala
gfaaliba ill' Allahta 'ala — so grateful are the

dead.

* * #

And night descends more deeply upon us.
The nightingales are silent and the east wind
rises over the Sierras ; then the filmy shadows
disappear; again I am alone in the magic
garden of the Alhambra. — Alone with the
soul of a great artist, and as the wind drives
through the leaves the old elms rustle and
sing of "Ulalume" strange ballad of the
Poet's awful dream.

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crisped and sere —

The leaves they were withering and sere —
It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,

In the misty mid region of Weir —
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Here once, through an alley Titanic
Of cypress I roamed with my soul — . . .

I know full well that it is I who speak
46

EDGAR ALLAN POE

these lines, but I feel that my lips say noth-
ing else than that which the elm trees whis-
per there. I feel — I feel — that it is the sad
October song of the howling winds which a
poet's heavenly longing has absorbed and
crystallized into words. It is the absorption
of the innermost sense of nature ; it is a sur-
render of the soul to the universe, and at
the same time a penetration into the uni-
verse, which is the primitive form of all ex-
istence. That is a slight proof of the poet's
highest law of "unity as the origin of all
things."

My lips repeat the secret words — which
the wind carries to my ears. Fear over-
comes me in this gloomy solitude, in which
ages dim as fairy land are born again. I
want to escape from the valley of the Al-
hambra. My foot errs, gropes in the dark,
and loses its way, and as I reach the end of
a lane of mighty cypress trees, I strike
against a low gate. Fright teaches us to
see in the dark. — I know, I know whose
grave this is. And against my will, my lips
repeat to my soul —

47

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"What is written, sweet sister,

On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied — "Ulalume — Ulalume —
Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume !"

My terror grows. The soul of the dead
Poet — which fluttered in the trees, which
sounded in the song of the nightingale, which
gurgled out of the little brooklets and which
filled the wind's sad song, — it takes posses-
sion of me — of me; of an atom of the dust
with which it is saturated. I know that this
thought will annihilate me, — that I cannot
escape from it, but I do not guard myself
against it — and, strange, I grow quiet — so
quiet that I am completely filled with it.
Slowly the small fears of mortals disperse.
* * *

Now I find my way again. I go through
the Gates of the Vines to the Square of the
Algibes. I go into the Alcazaba, mount
the Ghafar, the mighty watch tower of the
Moorish princes. A brilliant crescent of
the moon glows between two hurrying
clouds; — The old sign of Arabic greatness,
which no God or Christ can wipe from

48

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Heaven. I glance down into Granada,
rich in churches, with its noisy swarming
night life — its people running to coffee
houses; reading newspapers, shining shoes,
and having shoes shined. They look into
well-lighted show windows, ride in tram-
cars — their water carriers crying out and
gathering cigar butts. They cry and hoot,
quarrel and make peace again — and no liv-
ing soul raises an eye — nobody glances up-
ward to the glory here. The Darro roars
to the right of me. In the back I hear the
rushing of the Xenil. Bright rays of flame
emerge from the Caves of the Gypsy Moun-
tain, and to the other side, the snow-capped
Sierras gleam silvery in the moonlight. Be-
tween the watch towers on which I stand
and the purple towers of the Moorish Moun-
tain, the sombre park lies deep in the valley.
Farther back, with its halls upon halls, court-
yards upon courtyards, lies the enchanted
Palace of the Alhambra.

Down there the small life of this century
noisily goes its way — up here is the land of
dreams — and that down there — how distant,

49

EDGAR ALLAN POE

how infinitely distant it is from me — and
the land up here — is not each stone a part of
my soul? Am I alone in this world of
spirits, that does not sense that blind life
below ? Am I not a part of all these dreams ?
Almighty Beauty turns these dreams into
verities. Here life blossoms and the truth
below becomes a shadow play.

Deed is nothing — thought is all. Reality
is ugly — and to the ugly is denied all right of
existence. Dreams are beautiful, and are
true because they are beautiful, and there-
fore I believe in dreams as in the only real-
ity.

# # #

How did Edgar Allan Poe look?

There are men who radiate a special
charm. They attract without wanting to,
— one must believe in their personality, and
then there is a certain quality which repels.
One is not conscious what it consists of, but
it is there. They are branded with the brand
of Art. So was Oscar Wilde, — so was Ed-
gar Allan Poe.

His figure was tall, his step light, and his

50

EDGAR ALLAN POE

bearing always harmonious, — always noble
in spite of his poverty. His proud features
were regular; they were beautiful; the clear
dark grey eyes had an odd violet sheen. The
self-conscious forehead was high, and of won-
derful proportion — his complexion was pale,
and the locks that framed it were black.
Edgar Allan Poe was beautiful in body and
mind. His gentle voice sounded like music.

He was very supple and strong — skillful
in all athletic sports, an indefatigable swim-
mer, who at one time swam from Richmond
to Warwick, more than seven miles, with-
out tiring, against the rapid tide; a trained
athlete — a very fine rider, and an experi-
enced fencer who often challenged an op-
ponent in a fit of anger.

He was a gentleman from top to toe —
his manner in company was fascinatingly
amiable, yet, with all reserved. He was
tender and gentle, yet earnest and firm.
He was a scholar who possessed an almost
universal education. To see him was as
great a pleasure as to listen to him. He was
always the donor, and it was his curse that

51

EDGAR ALLAN POE

.so few of all those on whom he lavished his
rich gifts understood or appreciated them.
A few beautiful women — understood him?
— Xo, but they sensed his nobility of soul in-
stinctively, as women always do. Three
persons who lived in his time had the ability
to comprehend him completely,— Baude-
laire and the two Brownings — but they
lived over there in Europe and he never met
them.

So the Poet was alone in his solitary, lofty
dreams.

And as he was beautiful, and above all,
loved beauty, so everything that surrounded
him had to be beautiful. He created magni-
ficent beauties in dreams, which, to him,
were real. In them he lived in Landor's
costly country house or on the splendid estate
at Arnheim, but also in his modest, every
day life, in which he had to count the pen-
nies, he knew how to create an atmosphere
about him which called forth the admiration
of the richest people.

His little cottage at Fordham, in which
he lived at the side of the doomed wife,

52

EDGAR ALLAN POE

though a Paradise of Torture, was per-
meated by a wonderful harmony, which
charmed all visitors. Dilapidated furniture
stood about, yet even thus it seemed pleasing
and beautiful. It was a miserable hut on
the peak of a little hill, but blooming cherry
trees stood on the green meadows; early in
the morning little song-birds enticed the
Poet to the nearby pine woods. Then he
paced among his gay dahlia bushes and in-
haled the sweet perfume of the mignonette
and heliotrope. The gentle morning breeze
kissed his damp brow, caressed his tired eyes,
which had kept watch at the couch of his
slowly dying beloved, during the long night.
He went to the high bridge over the Harlem
River, or to the rocky cliffs shaded by old
cedars, and dreamed there, gazing out on the
landscape.

Now he rests — somewhere. The day
after his death they buried him in the West-
minster Churchyard in Baltimore. Like a
criminal vagrant they picked him from the
street and buried him the next day. His
grave is supposed to be close to that of his

53

EDGAR ALLAN POE

grandfather's — General David Poe, who
made a name for himself in the War of In-
dependence. Thereabouts he is supposed to
lie. One does not know the spot, exactly —
no cross, no gravestone arises on the place
— no human being bothers about it. His
countrymen have other cares; what interest
have they in a dead Poet? — For about a
week they talked of the unfortunate de-
parted— to besmirch — to calumniate his
memory. All of the lies which are still cir-
culated about him originated at this time.
A whole flood of poisoned ink was poured
over the dead lion. All the mediocrities fell
on him, the envious little scribblers whom he
had mercilessly torn to pieces, concurred in
the war cry of the lying clergyman Gris-
wold. — "He died in a fit of drunkenness!
— He drank, he drank, he drank." — Then
they forgot him, and it was better so; his
countrymen had not matured enough to ap-
preciate their great Poet.

Are they able to recognize him today?
After a hundred years they will gather the
rotting bones ; they will erect a mighty monu-

54

EDGAR ALLAN POE

merit and write thereon — "The United
States to its great Poet" —

Let them keep the bones in America.
We (in Europe) will listen to the Poet's
soul, which lives in the nightingales' throats
in the Alhambra.

* * *

THE END

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